42. Assassins
Assassins
M ila ran.
She instinctively seized a small iron saucepan as she passed through the kitchen and sprinted up the corridor. The presence, whoever it was, was burning brightly in her mind, like a bonfire in the woods. She kept her power fixated tightly upon it as she ran and watched in horror as the flame in her mind split into two.
There were two of them. Two people moving slowly toward Culis. Predators about to pounce.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Her chest and stomach clenched in pain as she flew through the enormous house. Her feet had wings, and adrenaline streaked through her, but it was not going to be enough. She would not be fast enough.
The two fires in her mind moved to either side of where Culis’s still presence lay. He did not so much as twitch. He was sound asleep, completely unaware.
She bounded up the flight of stairs, taking them three at a time. The assassins were fixated. They had their target in their sights. They moved with smooth efficiency.
Hurry, for the love of fate.
I’m going to be too late.
She felt the moment the figure on the left strengthened its resolve and lifted a blade above its head.
It was in that moment – screaming like a banshee – that Mila burst into Culis’s room, propelling herself through the air, landing atop the giant assassin’s head, and smashing the saucepan frantically into his face.
“Assassins!” she screeched as she beat the weight directly into the man’s nose. The appendage snapped loudly.
Out the corner of her eye, she saw the second figure make a slicing movement down over the bed.
Culis bellowed in pain, and Mila’s heart shattered.
A moment later, two swords clashed against another. Culis had somehow managed to arm himself and was fighting back.
That confirmation was the only attention she was able to give to him as her current predicament grew swiftly more dire. The giant she was atop reached up with the hand that held his knife, the point, fortunately, facing down.
She kicked at it, sending the knife clattering across the floor, then coiled around his neck like a determined snake. She smashed the pan into his face again and again with all her strength, resisting the hand that tried to grab her hair and pull her off, forcing him to release her as he clutched his nose when she aimed for it again.
He tried to punch her, but the angle was awkward, and his blow thudded weakly against her thigh. She slammed the heavy pan into his nose again .
It hit true for a third time, making a wet squelching sound of blood and mangled flesh where a proud nose had once perched.
Clearly in agony, and desperate to dislodge his unexpected passenger, the giant man suddenly backed up and threw himself into the wall, smacking Mila into it headfirst.
Oof.
The air burst violently free from her lungs, and she lost her grip on his head, sliding with a cry to the floor.
The man swiftly turned and kicked her, the blow so intense that she slid across the sleek wooden floor, smacking hard against the floor-to-ceiling window.
Winded, her eyes rolled back in her head. Behind her, she heard a loud crack and became vaguely aware of the glass spider-webbing around her.
She somehow managed to lift her head to dodge a second kick, which had been aimed at her face. The boot overshot its mark and shattered the weakened glass behind her completely.
Instinct more than anything drove Mila to roll backwards, out the newly open window. She landed hard onto the roof below amid broken glass and tiles, but managed to finally regain her breath and scramble to her feet.
The would-be assassin followed, much to her dismay.
The man was huge and bleeding profusely from his face.
He was also very, very unhappy with her.
She could feel his murderous rage pulsing, blinded to any thoughts other than those that involved putting her in the ground. The rain that had gently started earlier in the evening was coming down hard now, soaking them both, but also wetting the sloping tiles upon which they stood .
As he advanced towards her, Mila took a few steps backwards, but realised quickly that she was going to have to jump from this roof if she stood even the smallest chance of surviving this encounter. She’d lost the advantage that surprise and the small saucepan in her hand had given her, and Culis wasn’t coming to save her. For all she knew, he was already dead.
“You’re the demon,” the assassin said with a growl.
Mila took the advantage and turned to leap off the roof, committing to a fall that almost certainly would result in broken bones, at a minimum.
But the giant was fast, as well as huge. He lunged forward, catching hold of her arm in a burst of fire and pain that radiated up her shoulder.
“Oh no, you don’t,” he snarled. “Not that easily.”
He hauled her back up onto the roof as though she were a kitten.
When he punched her directly in the face, Mila’s world spun and went momentarily black.
When she came to, he was on top of her. Knee on her chest, hands around her neck, choking the life from her.
This is it.
Her hands scrabbled uselessly against his huge mitts. He was so big and strong, he was about to snap her neck in the process of wringing it. She had mere seconds left.
Her desperate hands clawed at his, feebly trying to pull them away.
Suddenly, her power flared and flowed through her skin, into him, touching him, feeling his rage.
Less, her dying, oxygen-starved brain commanded his rage.
Less.
It obeyed .
The strangling pressure around her throat relented, and Mila heaved in air with a hoarse, painful rasp.
The man looked at his hands in confusion, as if unsure what he was doing with them and why.
Mila could feel, incredulously, that his pulsing rage had lessened somehow. The lethal energy had drained out of him, dampened… by her command.
Impossible.
Suddenly, she was filled by a surge of ecstasy as the assassin’s stolen energy entered her body. She gasped with the sheer force of it, the power, the life force of someone else being ripped away and stuffed into her own body. It was intoxicating.
Mila felt as though she was glowing, consumed by more light and power than she’d ever known was possible to feel. Her body was so full, she feared it might float off the rooftop and into the sky…
Bang!
Her ecstasy was interrupted by a bloodied and exhausted-looking Culis jumping from the window.
He landed hard on the tiles of the rooftop, brandishing a heavy, lead candlestick in his hands.
The giant heard him land and spun around warily, but too late. The candlestick was already swinging. It caught him square across the face, snapping his neck to the side and spinning him off the roof to his death below.
It all happened in a matter of seconds. Mila stood dumbfounded in the rain, blinking stupidly at the body with the broken neck that lay on the cobbles two storeys below her.
“Mila.” Culis’s voice broke through her reverie.
When she turned to him, he was reaching a hand out towards her .
She took it, feeling numb. Her brain resisted her attempts to make sense of what had just happened.
The sensation of weightlessness, fearlessness, divinity, ebbed achingly away and left her with little but a body covered in cuts and tiny shards of glass. And the pain of these wounds was nothing compared to her aching throat and hands.
Culis’s hand was bloody, but warm. It steadied her. Brought her brain back to ground. He wrapped his other arm around her back and helped her into the room.
Mila clung to him, to the human contact, which brought relief, comfort, and in some small way, disappointment. Whatever that ethereal feeling had been earlier, it’d been the most intense high she’d ever experienced. But it was gone now, just a shadow ebbing in the corner of her mind. She wanted to process everything that had just happened, but she couldn’t yet.
The noise from their fight had drawn Culis’s guards to his room. When they re-entered the bedroom, Baird was staring at them and the destroyed room in amazement.
“What happened?” he demanded.
Culis pulled Baird aside, but refused to relinquish Mila’s hand as he did so, wrapping his fingers tightly around hers. She couldn’t hear his exact words to Baird but could make out the curt tone. Baird nodded with a severe expression on his face and then turned and barked orders at the other guards, who had joined them.
They took the body of the dead assassin with them and hurriedly left. All but the healer.
Culis turned back to Mila. “Are you injured?” he asked with obvious concern.
She shook her head, despite the cuts and glass all over her. He was the one who needed urgent medical attention, not her. He was clearly sporting a wound on his right side. There was a lot of blood, and he was grimacing.
The healer scuttled forward to treat him, but Culis still refused to release Mila’s hand, forcing the healer to cut away his bloody nightshirt in order to commence tending to the wound.
Concern, protection…love.
“Mila. How did you know they were here?” Culis asked gently, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, staring at her with a wide-eyed look of relief.
“I sensed them,” she replied, still trying to catch her breath.
“You can sense from that distance?” His eyes narrowed in confusion, focused only on her, as though his side weren’t being scraped clean and sewn back together. “I didn’t know that was possible. You’re amazing.”
“I don’t do it often,” she admitted. “When too many people are awake, it’s draining. But I can scan a room my powers. Which is what I did tonight. I sensed you in bed, asleep. And then I sensed them – ” she gestured to the broken window, “ – and their intent.”
“And you ran to save me,” he said gravely. “You did save me. If you hadn’t leapt on one, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. Cowards. Two men against one asleep in his bed. They didn’t expect to encounter a demon though.” He smiled at her, and Mila couldn’t help but return it, although her throat and face hurt when she did so.
Once Culis had been stitched up, she finally allowed the healer to turn his attention to her cuts. Culis only agreed to release her hand when he saw the healer needed to conduct a full inspection of Mila’s injuries and ensure all the glass shards had been removed. There wasn’t much he could do about the swelling bruises on her face or neck.
Finally, he finished, and Mila turned to look at Culis.
“What now?” he asked .
“I…I think I’d just like to go back to bed,” she said softly, through a throat that was becoming sorer by the minute.
“Leave us.” Culis dismissed the healer, then approached Mila again, reaching for her slowly, as though afraid to startle her. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body, and the gingery smell of the healer’s ointments.
He reached a hand up to her cheek and tilted her face towards his, running a hand gently over her neck, tracing the injury there with fury written all over his face. Mila wanted his gentle touch to continue, so she leaned into it.
“I’m going to find out who did this,” he promised. “But for tonight, let me look after you, please.”
He waited for her small nod before he took her hand and slowly walked her back down to her small room.
Once there, he became rather businesslike. He stoked the fire until the room became hot again, while she sat shivering on the edge of her bed.
Satisfied with that, in the brisk manner of a nurse, and without ceremony, he stripped her out of her sopping wet nightgown that now clung to her.
He didn’t stare or flush at her nakedness, but simply helped place a fresh gown over her head. He then took a towel and ran it over her hair, wringing out the water.
Finally, he herded her over to her small pallet. Once she laid down, he clambered in after her.
“Move over,” he whispered.
She obeyed without protest or resistance. Culis slid in close behind her back and pressed his warmth against her, wrapping an arm tightly around her middle and pulling her deeply into his chest .
Despite the heat of his body, Mila began to tremble in earnest, as the shock of her near death hit her. Culis had anticipated this. He tucked her still-damp hair behind her ears and whispered to her as she shook violently inside the circle of his arms.
“You’re safe,” he repeated over and over. “I have you, you’re safe.”
Finally, once the intensity of the shaking lessened, Mila rolled to face him, her nose pressed closely into his. “You seem okay?” she queried quietly.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve survived something I shouldn’t have.”
“I couldn’t let you die,” she whispered.
“I’m a little surprised that you came to save me,” he replied with a small grin.
“Are you really?” she asked incredulously.
“No,” he chuckled, “not at all. I intrigue you too much for you to let me die.” He bit back a tiny smile that was trying to escape, as if unsure she’d appreciate the humour at a time like this. “Here.” He pulled her flush against his warm, hard body, all humour now leaving his face. “I want you to read it all.”
Mila had never been so close to him before, and it was intoxicating. She pressed her face closer, into the crook of his neck, where she could feel his pounding pulse against her lips.
Culis cupped his palm behind her head, drawing her close. His energy poured out of him and finally, finally, she was able to reach his depths.
She drank it all in, all of him, his desperation to connect to her, to be truly seen by her. There was no false pretence or plotting found inside him, only a deep need to be seen and loved, a desire, she realised, matched firmly by her own .
She tilted her head up. Their lips were now so close that she felt as though she were breathing him in, could feel every thud of his heart in his chest, beating into her skin, the ragged rhythm of his breathing…
“Mila,” he whispered, his voice catching on her name. “I know the necklace, but…tomorrow. I promise. Just. Please. May I?”
“For the love of all things… Just shut up and kiss me, Culis.”
And then he finally, finally broke whatever semblance of distance remained between them with a slow, long, utterly consuming kiss.